


Missed

by uaevuon



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, Reunion, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uaevuon/pseuds/uaevuon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things Killua said when he thought Gon was asleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted from tumblr

“I missed you.”

The mumble doesn’t really sound like anything, not like words or whispers or anything at all, but Killua’s lips form those words even if the sound doesn’t leave him quite as such. Gon, hand clasped around Killua’s like he used to, as if the last four years never happened, doesn’t stir, so Killua gets a little braver. 

“I missed you,” he repeats, this time as real words.

Gon’s hair is longer, long enough that gravity holds it down, and at first glance it made Killua’s chest tighten but now, only hours later, it’s normal. Killua wants to reach out and brush it -- it’s a mess, honestly; tangled and half-escaping the elastic holding it out of Gon’s face. He could never expect anything different out of someone who’s spent the last few years without a permanent home, who just took a proper shower in Killua’s hotel room for the first time in… months, probably. 

Moving might wake Gon, though, so he doesn’t. He just stares, though he’ll never call it staring. It’s… watching. Observing. Not staring. 

But he does stare. He stares at Gon’s sleeping face, hints of his perpetual smile at the up-drawn corners of his lips and the contented tilt of his closed eyelids. He doesn’t look away until he’s sure he’s memorised every change in Gon’s face and everything that’s familiar. 

When Killua does look away, it’s toward the wide window, through which he can see the nearly full moon setting. He knows it’s late; too late to be awake, much less staring at one’s most cherished friend with no intentions of sleeping. But he doesn’t know how long they’ll be together this time before one of them, or both, has to leave. They didn’t talk about it yet. Killua knows, somehow, it’s because that time is coming soon. 

Gon’s hand is warm, and he holds Killua’s tightly, not tight enough to break bones but enough that if Killua sleeps now he knows he’ll feel that touch in his dreams. 

He doesn’t want to leave. 

He never wanted to leave in the first place, but he had to. He had to learn how to survive without Gon again, not in case the time came when Killua couldn’t save him (that would never, _ever_ happen, Killua wouldn’t let it happen) but because Killua knew he couldn’t live depending so much on one person for his happiness. 

He wouldn’t say he’s happy as a general thing. Killua doesn’t believe he ever will be. But he’s been happy, for the most part, travelling the world with Alluka. He doesn’t have to depend on Gon any more. He doesn’t need him, not like he needs air or food or anything else he ever compared Gon to. 

But he still wants him around, forever. So even if his hands are shaking, he’ll let Gon hold them. 

“I missed you so much.” The words fall out, and they sound like the old monologues he’d always kept inside his head about thirteen-year-old Gon, light of his short life, his best friend, the one he swore to protect. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Gon responds, and Killua gasps because he didn’t know Gon was awake and he really, really should have. Gon’s eyes open, and Killua knows he can see the shock on his face, the embarrassment, all of it illuminated by the moon while Gon is, for once, in shadow. But not in the dark; Killua supposes his own pale self reflects the moonlight back onto Gon. 

“Killua?” Gon calls, and he still sounds so much like he did at thirteen. His voice has barely deepened, unlike Killua’s, and his manner of speaking is the same. “You know that, right? I’m not leaving Killua. Not again.” 

“Oh,” Killua breathes. 

Gon removes one hand from Killua’s and runs it through Killua’s hair. “Killua’s hair is still as soft as I remembered. I wondered.”

“Gon…”

“Hey, Killua? You know what I realised while you were away?” His fingers are still in Killua’s hair, tips rubbing the back of his head like Gon is trying to give him some sort of head massage. It feels nice, and it’s distracting, and Killua is sleepy, so he almost misses it. “Killua?”

“What?” he asks, closing his eyes. 

The next words are close to him and accompanied by warm puffs of air against his face and the realisation that Gon has moved closer temporarily slows his brain’s processing speed so he feels the words first, and it takes him a moment to hear them. 

His eyes fly open. “What?” he asks, a little less gentle, a little more nervous. 

“I never did kiss you,” Gon repeats. “I wanted to. And so did you, but I never did.”

“How did you…”

“Killua was pretty bad at hiding it.”

Killua feels a flush creep over his cheeks, one of a very few reactive body functions he has never been able to control. It’s just as awful as every other time, and Gon is staring right at him. 

“Killua?”

“I only said I missed you,” he blurts out, because he can’t answer properly. He barely knows Gon anymore; even if he talks the same and acts the same and holds Killua’s hand in his sleep the same as he used to, Killua doesn’t know him. Anything could have changed. Everything could have changed since they were last together. He loves Gon, he always has, but he loves the Gon he remembers and it’s not fair to the Gon in front of him to say that’s enough. 

“You don’t want to.” Gon doesn’t sound disappointed, but Killua knows he must be. 

“I do,” Killua corrects. “But not now.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for Killua as long as you want me to.”

Killua still feels like he doesn’t deserve anything this good in his life, but it’s more a nagging fly in the back of his head than an actual belief. Because Gon has done wrong, they both have, but they still deserve good in their lives. 

Don’t they?

“I’ll stay with Killua too, as long as you want.” Gon pulls Killua closer and rests his chin on the top of Killua’s head, continues to finger-comb his hair.


End file.
